


flowers over our bruises

by feralphoenix



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 22:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7241638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There isn’t any right or wrong to it, Mewt. Just a choice, that’s all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	flowers over our bruises

**Author's Note:**

> _(Do you think about any of them?_ – the body without organs can also [bloom](http://marchenwings.tumblr.com/post/50002869929/))

The thing is, you all wished for certain specific things when you used the book. It wasn’t just a place to fit in, a place where you had families and friends who loved you, a place where you were able-bodied and had no flaws.

Marche wanted a world where the strong were honorable and good. Ritz wanted a world where white hair was normal—a thing to be proud of, even, instead of something to hide. Doned wanted a world where to be small and clever and, yes, weak too didn’t mean that you weren’t invaluable. You wanted a world where wisdom was valued and respected, not something to tease out of envy. And the grimoire did that for you, too.

You all gained things and lost things. Marche’s choice was just his choice; he’d got what he needed and was ready to go back. He didn’t need what he called “escapism” to survive anymore.

There isn’t any right or wrong to it, Mewt. Just a choice, that’s all.

 

 

“Oh, that stuff,” he says, laughing, awkward, not meeting your eyes. “Come on, enough with all our old games of pretend. They’ll think we’re chuunibyous or something.”

You’re in high school, all still friends, but he’s a little distant in his forgetting. He’s always been the quickest of all of you to move on.

If you start to spend more time with Doned, who you can still talk to about it, than with your old best friend, no one seems the worse for it. He’s happier without the reminders, and you—you’re lonely, all right, but you still have things you need to, want to, hang on to.

Ritz is cagier about these things, and busier too between art lessons and fencing classes and the soccer team’s away games. But she doesn’t give in to the pressure to dye her hair again, and she draws girls with tall hare’s ears in the margins of her class notes, and she only shows those notes to you.

She’s taken to cultivating flowers, hasn’t she? Blue ones. She has a lot of hairpins decorated with the things that she used to wear on dates with Marche, but she stopped after he forgot ever giving roses to her, didn’t she.

She might not talk about it, but she remembers.

 

 

There are specific things you all wished for, and everything you could carry back from Ivalice to St. Ivalice, you carried it. Cid Randell’s newly remembered sense of responsibility carried him to support meetings, and he’s barely touched alcohol since. He’s set all the photos of your mother back. He stitches your doll back up whenever it gets torn.

Marche is more confident in his own skin. He’s more outgoing, makes friends more quickly, doesn’t daydream, doesn’t stare after you and your father so enviously. Ritz is more aggressive, prouder of her appearance. She paints Shara as a human girl, passes her off as a fleeting crush from a summer spent overseas. That’s how Marche seems to remember her, too, and he accepts her flights of wistfulness with grace.

You’ve seen Doned trying to stand, sometimes.

 

 

“What about you?”

You ask your reflection this one night, changed into your pajamas with your curls flying every which way, threadbare teddy under one arm, bulging notebook filled with stories and memories tucked to your chest with the other.

The things you got in Ivalice, you’ll carry them around for as long as you need them. It wasn’t just your mother and father you needed, or your teddy bear come to life, or a race of people who valued what you do. You needed a knight to stand up to bullies, you needed someone who could vent your anger and your bitterness when you couldn’t, you needed someone to love you unconditionally, and you needed that person to be you for as long as it took you to grow into those shoes for yourself.

You can do that now, Mewt. You’re the person now that you needed then. Your father and your friends are proud of you. _I’m_ proud of you.

I’ll leave if you ever need me to. If you get tired of holding onto the voice in the back of your head.

“I don’t want you to leave,” you say. You hold the book of your stories, your overflowing imagination, all the magic you’ll never give up closer to your chest.

It’s not sad to be let go of. It just means that you don’t need us anymore. It’s just a choice, Mewt; you don’t have to worry about what’s Right or Wrong as a whole, you’ve just got to worry about what’s right and wrong for _you._

In the mirror, your mouth goes small and tight. There’s acne along your cheeks and shoulders and stubble on your chin. If we were separate, I’d have to go up on tiptoe if I wanted to put my arms around your middle and my chin on your shoulder as comfortably as I did the day we met.

I see that you don’t like what I’m saying. I still think it’s fine to be selfish. It’s pretty funny that I still have to be selfish for you sometimes.

“It’s even funnier that _I_ have to be selfish for _you,”_ you say.

I can’t really argue with that.

“Even if I’m the only one who remembers you,” you say. “Even if there’s no one I can tell about you. Even if Ritz and Doned and Dad all forget it all too, one day. I’ll remember, and I’ll still want you here. You’re my friend.”

I’m your bad temper and your desire to cut loose and hurt things, Mewt; you’re about the only person who’d call me a friend. Your ally, sure, but the others’d beg to differ on anything else.

“You’re me,” you say, shrugging your shoulders like this is not a problem. “Even you’ve admitted it, that I’m able to love myself now the way I wanted. That means I love you too, and I want you to stay with me. Or do you _want_ to disappear?”

…

You shouldn’t ask questions with obvious answers, you know.

“Okay then,” you say. Satisfied. “Even if I don’t strictly _need_ you here, I _want_ you here. I _like_ having you here. Whatever else changes, that won’t.”

And you shift your arms so that you can rub your palm flat over your chest, a warmth that spreads through us both.

…You’re unbelievable.

“I promise,” you say, softer.

Well, then. I guess that’s enough to be getting on with.

…Now hurry up and brush your teeth already before Dad yells at us. And put Babus down, he can survive sitting on the counter for five minutes while you see to your dental hygiene.

You chuckle a little. “Sure, Llednar, whatever you say.”


End file.
